Blood and Honor Page 13

‘‘Señor Frade, with your kind permission, my officers and I would be honored to accompany you to where your father lies in honor in the Edificio Libertador.’’

  ‘‘Your kindness, mi General, honors both me and my father.’’

  Ramírez nodded and then raised his left hand in a gesture Clete had learned was common in Argentina and signified, ‘‘it’s nothing,’’ or ‘‘don’t be silly.’’

  The Mercedes pulled up before the main entrance of the white masonry nine-story building. Two helmeted guards brought their Mauser bolt-action rifles to Present Arms. Ram írez’s aide-de-camp jumped out of the front seat and opened the rear door for Clete. Meanwhile, a gray-haired man in uniform trousers and a white medical jacket he was still in the process of buttoning came through the ten-foot-high bronze and glass doorway.

  He saluted Ramírez.

  ‘‘A sus órdenes, mi General,’’ he said. ‘‘I had no word—’’

  ‘‘Señor Frade,’’ Ramírez interrupted him, ‘‘may I present el Coronel-Médico Orrico, who commands Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital? Coronel, this is Señor Frade.’’

  Orrico offered his hand.

  ‘‘I’m sorry we have to meet under such a tragic circumstance, Mr. Frade,’’ he said in perfect, British English. ‘‘I was privileged to call your father my friend. Please accept my sincere condolences.’’

  ‘‘Thank you very much, Doctor,’’ Clete said.

  ‘‘Mr. Frade wishes to see Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez,’’ Ramírez announced.

  ‘‘Of course,’’ Orrico said, and motioned for them to enter the building.

  ‘‘How is he?’’ Clete asked.

  ‘‘Very fortunate,’’ Orrico replied. ‘‘It could have been, should have been, a good deal worse.’’

  ‘‘Speak Spanish, please,’’ Ramírez ordered curtly, then looked at Clete and smiled. ‘‘My English, you will forgive me, is quite bad.’’

  ‘‘Not at all,’’ Clete replied in Spanish.

  They boarded an elevator and rode to the sixth floor. When the door opened, a man in civilian clothing was sitting in a very uncomfortable-looking upright chair. Hanging from the back of the chair was a .45 automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. He stood up and came to attention.

  A cop, Clete decided. One of el Teniente Coronel Mart ín’s men? Or Policía Federal?

  Orrico led them down a wide corridor to a room, outside of which sat another guard, this one with his .45 barely concealed in a holster on his belt. And he, too, came to an Attention-like position as Orrico pushed open the door.

  A hospital bed, cranked up so that its occupant could sit up, held a heavyset, closely shaven and shorn man in his forties. He was bare-chested, and there were bandages, some of them showing blood, on his chest and arms. His head was heavily bandaged, including one covering his left eye. He was Enrico Rodríguez, late Suboficial Mayor of the Húsares de Pueyrredón cavalry regiment of the Argentine Army.

  When he saw Clete, he dropped the newspaper he was reading and tried to get out of bed.

  ‘‘Stay where you are, Enrico,’’ Clete ordered, walking quickly to him.

  ‘‘Mi Teniente,’’ Rodríguez said, his voice breaking, ‘‘I have failed el Coronel. I have failed you!’’

  ‘‘Don’t be absurd,’’ Clete said. He turned. ‘‘May I have a moment alone with the Suboficial Mayor, please?’’

  ‘‘Of course,’’ Orrico said.

  Clete had the feeling that Ramírez didn’t like the idea, but he left the room with the doctor.

  Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez was now sobbing.

  Clete put his arms around him, felt his throat tighten and his eyes water.

  ‘‘What happened, Enrico?’’

  ‘‘They were waiting for us about two kilometers from the house at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, where the road curves sharply?’’

  Clete nodded to show he knew where Rodríguez meant.

  ‘‘They put a beef, a carcass, in the road. When I slowed to go around it, they opened fire. . . .’’

  ‘‘Banditos?’’

  Rodríguez snorted contemptuously.

  ‘‘Banditos like the ‘burglars’ on Libertador,’’ he said.

  ‘‘They were killed, I’m told, by the Provincial Police.’’

  ‘‘They were killed so they could not be questioned by the clowns,’’ Rodríguez said. He customarily referred to the agents of the Bureau of Internal Security as ‘‘the clowns.’’

  ‘‘Go on.’’

  ‘‘Thompsons, I think,’’ Rodríguez said, professionally. ‘‘There was too much fire for pistols. I was hit . . .’’—he pointed to his head and the bandage—‘‘. . . the bullet must have hit the window post first, or just grazed me.’’

  ‘‘Or hit your head and bounced off. My father always said you were the most hardheaded man he had ever known,’’ Clete joked.

  ‘‘The doctor told me the bullet dug a trench as deep as a fingernail. There was a lot of blood. They probably thought I was dead . . .’’

  ‘‘You were lucky,’’ Clete said.

  ‘‘. . . and the car ran off the road and hit a tree. And when I came to’’—he broke into chest-heaving sobs again—‘‘el Coronel was in heaven with the angels, and your blessed mother and my sister.’’

  Clete was surprised at the emotion that came over him. He hugged the older man tightly and only after a long moment found his voice.

  ‘‘Enrico, mi amigo,’’ he heard himself saying, ‘‘in the Bible it is written that there is no greater love than he who lays down his life for another. You did that. You failed neither my father nor me.’’

  I sounded like an Argentine when I said that. I never said anything so corny on Guadalcanal, and Enrico is not the first weeping man I’ve tried to talk out of feeling responsible for someone else’s death. But that came out naturally. What is that, my Argentine genes?

  ‘‘And in the Bible it says, ‘an eye for an eye,’ mi Teniente, ’’ Rodríguez said.

  ‘‘I wish you’d stop calling me that,’’ Clete said.

  ‘‘Whatever you wish, Señor Cletus.’’

  ‘‘How about ‘Clete’?’’

  ‘‘Whatever you wish, Señor Clete.’’

  He simply doesn’t understand what I’m asking. That he regard me as a friend, as I regard him. Not as an officer, not, for Christ’s sake, as el Patrón. To hell with it. That can wait.

  ‘‘Is there anything I can do for you? Anything I can get you?’’

  ‘‘I wish to pray at the casket of el Coronel,’’ Enrico said. ‘‘To beg his forgiveness.’’

  ‘‘He has nothing to forgive you for,’’ Clete said.

  ‘‘And to go with him to his grave.’’

  ‘‘I’ll arrange for that.’’

  ‘‘They tell me it will not be possible,’’ Enrico said.

  You will pray at his casket, Enrico, and go with my father to his grave if I have to carry you on my back.

  ‘‘I’ll arrange for it,’’ Clete said firmly.

  ‘‘Gracias, Señor Clete. Is it fine?’’

  ‘‘Is what fine?’’

  ‘‘Where your father lies in honor. Is it fine and digni fied?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. I came here from the plane. That’s next.’’

  ‘‘Señor Clete, you must go to your father and pray at his casket!’’

  ‘‘Just as soon as I leave here,’’ Clete said.

  He put out his hand to Enrico, and then, instead, wrapped his arm around his shoulders.

  General Ramírez was waiting, looking a little impatient, outside the room.

  ‘‘Mi General,’’ Clete said, ‘‘Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez wishes to visit my father where he lies and to accompany the body to the grave. Is there a problem with that?’’

  Ramírez hesitated. ‘‘There are, of course, problems of security, Señor Frade.’’

  ‘‘Whoever killed my father has no reason to cause harm to Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez
.’’

  ‘‘Of course,’’ Ramírez said. ‘‘I will see to it.’’

  You know as well as I do, don’t you, mi General, that ‘‘banditos’’ didn’t kill my father?

  ‘‘I am inappropriately dressed to go to the Edificio Libertador, mi General. May I impose further on your time by asking . . ."

  ‘‘By now your luggage will be at the house,’’ Ramírez said. ‘‘It will be no imposition at all on our time, Señor Frade.’’

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ Clete said. ‘‘And with your permission, mi General, I would like a private word with el Coronel-Medico Orrico.’’

  ‘‘Whatever you wish,’’ Ramírez said, his tone making it clear he was displeased.

  Clete took Orrico’s arm and led him twenty yards down the corridor.

  ‘‘Was my father brought here?’’ he asked.

  Orrico nodded.

  ‘‘Was there an autopsy?’’

  Orrico nodded again, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘‘I wish to speak to the physician who performed the autopsy.’’

  ‘‘I had that sad duty.’’

  ‘‘What was the cause of death?’’

  Orrico hesitated, then met Clete’s eyes.

  ‘‘Multiple wounds from shotshell pellets to the chest and cranium. We removed twenty-five double zero pellets from the body, which—together with what I believe are two entrance wounds—makes me believe he was shot twice with a twelve-bore shotgun. Either wound, in my opinion, would have caused instantaneous death. Your father did not suffer, Mr. Frade, if that is any comfort.’’

  ‘‘Not very much, mi Coronel,’’ Clete said. ‘‘But thank you very much.’’

  He touched Orrico’s arm, turned, and walked quickly back to General Ramírez.

  [THREE] Alvear Palace Hotel Avenida Alvear Buenos Aires 1730 9 April 1943

  Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner, the Military Attaché of the Embassy of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina, was a tall, ascetic-looking man who looked older than his forty years.

  He was not surprised when notified that Standartenführer Josef Goltz would be making a ‘‘liaison visit in connection with security matters’’ to Buenos Aires, only that the ‘‘liaison visit’’ was so long in coming. The Reine de la Mer had been blown up on December 31, 1942, three and a half months before.

  There was no question whatever in his mind that no matter how long the list of matters about which Goltz wished to liaise, the first item on it would be the destruction of the Reine de la Mer. It would therefore seem to follow that Goltz would have come as soon as possible after that disaster.

  Germany’s submarine operations in the South Atlantic were critically important to the war effort. Neutral Argentina was growing rich providing both the Allies and the Axis with beef, leather, wool, and other agricultural products.

  Under international law, a neutral country’s merchant ships bound from one neutral country to another could not be torpedoed. Thus, Germany-bound supplies were shipped in Argentine and other neutral bottoms to neutral Portugal or Spain, then transshipped by rail through occupied France to Germany.

  England, of course, was also free to use neutral merchantmen as far as Spain or Portugal, and sometimes did so. But there was no way to transship by land cargoes from Spain or Portugal to England, and the moment a merchantman, neutral or otherwise, left a Spanish or Portuguese port for England, it was fair game for German submarines.

  The Allied solution to this problem was to use their own merchantmen. These sailed up the Atlantic Coast of South America under the protection of Brazilian warships, and then of the U.S. Navy, until the ships could join well-protected England-bound convoys sailing from ports on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

  Consequently, the best—often the only—place where German submarines could attack England-bound merchant ships was on the high seas between the mouth of the River Plate, when they left protected Argentinian/Uruguayan neutral territory and before they came under Brazilian Navy protection.

  It was a very long way—more than 7,000 nautical miles—from the submarine pens in Germany and France to the mouth of the River Plate. As a practical matter, submarines on station in the South Atlantic could not return to their home ports for replenishment. Under the best conditions it was a forty-day round trip, and submarines returning to the South Atlantic arrived already out of fresh food and low on fuel.

  Replenishment ships, stocked with everything the submarines needed, were the obvious solution. But either German Navy or civilian cargo vessels ran the great risk of being interdicted and sunk, either en route to the South Atlantic or while on station on the high seas, waiting to replenish submarines. And ‘‘neutral’’ merchantmen serving as replenishment vessels weren’t the solution either, as any ‘‘neutral’’ vessel suspected of being a replenishment vessel was shadowed by Allied warships on the high seas and off the Uruguayan and Argentine coasts.

  The solution to the problem was to take advantage of Argentine neutrality—with the secret support of some high-ranking Argentine officers.

  A Spanish-registered merchantman was secretly loaded with fuel, torpedoes, and other supplies in Bremen. It returned to Spain, and then sailed from Spain for Buenos Aires, as a neutral vessel bound from one neutral port to another, and thus safe from Allied interdiction.

  It anchored ‘‘with engine problems’’ within Argentine waters in the Bay of Samborombón in the River Plate estuary. With the Argentine Navy and Coast Guard looking the other way, submarines were able to take on fuel, weapons, and fresh food and then resume their patrols.

  It didn’t take the Americans long to figure that out.

  Reluctant to violate Argentine neutrality by sending warships into Argentine waters to take out a ‘‘neutral’’ merchantman, the Americans turned to covert operation. They sent a team of OSS agents to blow the ship up. But when they arrived, Grüner’s contacts in Argentine intelligence warned him of the presence of the OSS team, and later identified them.

  Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay had a criminal element quite as vicious as any in Berlin or Hamburg. Grüner had little trouble contracting with a group of Argentine smugglers to eliminate this OSS team on the River Plate, and then with a group of Paraguayans to eliminate the Argentines when they went to Paraguay ‘‘until things cooled down.’’

  The Americans then sent a second team of OSS agents to Buenos Aires, and again they were identified to Grüner by German sympathizers in the Argentine military. Though Grüner attempted to eliminate the team chief, the attempt failed. And shortly after the replacement replenishment vessel —the Portuguese-registered Reine de la Mer—arrived in the Bay of Samborombón with a fresh cargo of torpedoes and fuel, she was blown to bits, taking to the bottom with her a submarine that was tied up alongside taking on fuel. There were no survivors.

  Grüner didn’t know exactly how this was accomplished. But he suspected the infiltration into Argentina of a team of U.S. Navy underwater demolition experts—with the assistance of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. Frade also doubtless helped the team in its exfiltration from that country.

  It was a monumental disaster for submarine operations. The Reine de la Mer had managed to refuel and otherwise replenish only one submarine before it was destroyed. Afterward, Grüner had no idea how many other submarines—he guessed ten, or perhaps a dozen—were ranging the South Atlantic counting on replenishment in Samborombón Bay.

  What those submarines did when they were advised that fuel and food—not to mention torpedoes or ammunition for their cannon—were not going to be available in the South Atlantic was unpleasant to think about.

  Even the obvious—heading for the submarine pens on the coast of France—was not possible for some of them. They did not have the necessary fuel for the twenty-day voyage.

  There were options, of course. There are always options. They could rendezvous at sea with other submarines. Those with reserve fuel could share it with those whose t
anks were empty. As a last desperate measure, one submarine could theoretically tow another.

  Grüner had heard nothing of what actually happened. The German embassy in Buenos Aires was told only what it was necessary for it to know. Significantly, Grüner thought, there had been no word of a replacement for the Reine de la Mer. Which probably meant that none was en route. There was a possibility, of course, that the completely unexpected —and catastrophic—loss of the Reine de la Mer had so upset people that Buenos Aires would learn of a replacement vessel only when it entered Argentine waters.

  It was also possible, of course, that a midocean rendezvous had taken place, with the submarines receiving at least fuel from the tanks of German surface warships, or perhaps even from merchantmen, German or otherwise, which would at least get them back to the sub pens in France.

  But for all practical purposes, the destruction of the Reine de la Mer had brought submarine operations in the South Atlantic to a halt.

  El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had been one of the most powerful men in Argentina. It was scarcely a secret that he had been the power behind the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, who were reliably reported to be about to stage a coup against the government of President Ramón S. Castillo. At one time, Frade, a close friend of General Pedro P. Ramírez, the Argentine Minister of War, had been thought to be, like Ramírez, very sympathetic to the German cause.

  That had changed. In an unexpectedly masterful stroke on their part, the Americans sent in Frade’s long-estranged son. Blood, Grüner knew, was indeed stronger than water, and he himself knew the strong emotion—mixed pride and love—a father felt for a son who was a heroic aviator.

  Grüner now acknowledged that he had allowed that knowledge to color his judgment. Young Frade had turned out to be more than a son sent to tug on the heartstrings of a father from whom he had been long separated. He was also a professional intelligence officer. The bodies of the two highly qualified assassins sent to eliminate him, and the blown-up Reine de la Mer, were absolute proof of that. After a good deal of thought, Grüner decided that Goltz had waited to come to Argentina until the operation to eliminate el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade was carried out. If Goltz had been in Argentina, some would suspect he was involved in that. Because of the implications of the Frade elimination, and of his own and Ambassador von Lutzenberger ’s objections to it, Grüner also decided that the order to eliminate Frade must have come from higher up—perhaps from Canaris or Ribbentrop. But he wasn’t sure. In his experience, highly placed SS-SD officers were very good at arranging fingers of suspicion to point at other people.